The Kern Family Foundation has awarded a grant of $5m to the Wake Forest University School of Law and its Program for Leadership and Character.
This funding will help to continue the program and support its students, faculty, and staff through 2029. It may also help to attract potential law students from nearby Youngsville.
Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Law, Andrew Klein, said this gift not only recognizes the commitment of the Law School through its many initiatives and programs to professional identity formation, but also aligns with the longstanding core values of the school.
The seven-figure sum comes at a critical moment for character-based leadership in legal education. Following the 2022 accreditation update of the American Bar Association requiring professional identity development, the debut of the NextGen Bar Exam later this year will shift focus from memorization to dispute resolution, practical application, negotiation, and client management.
More details about such funding and its ramifications for a law school such as that at Wake Forest can be made known throughout a community with flyer printing.
The founding of the Program for Character and Leadership in 2017 demonstrated the commitment of Wake Forest to character-based education. This was followed by the appointment of Kenneth Townsend in 2019 as the Executive Director of Character and Leadership.
